Archive for the ‘Earthquest’ Category

Don Allen Holbrook continued to receive payments from EMCID for the defunct Earthquest Institute charity that he helped to run into the ground as its CEO and president. Frank “The Bank” McCrady is also withholding documents showing what he has paid in legal fees for the Earthquest debacle being investigated. Disgusting!

To be honest, I am slightly butthurt by some of the comments in that second link, since:

I am one of the “gun nuts” referred to.

It is always interesting that people who don’t like guns say, “I don’t want to take away anyone’s guns, I just want to make sure that people who have them are properly trained”…and then sneer at anyone who engages in training.

That being said, though, I will give the Pahrump Valley Times editor a pass, since this brings to my attention something I was unaware of.

Don Holbrook’s latest scheme (or, at least, one of his latest) apparently involves getting the county to put $63,000, and the city of Pahrump another $63,000, to fund the expansion of a shooting range/training school. It sounds like the idea is similar to ECMID: create a “tax improvement” district, and the funds will come from sales taxes paid by all the people who flock there. Here’s an article from earlier in the year discussing the plan.

But we’re not just talking about any training facility. We’re talking about Front Sight, run by the man Tam refers to as “Four Weapon Combat Master Dr. Ignatius Piazza“. To put it mildly, Dr. Piazza has a colorful reputation in the gun community, complete with several lawsuits, at least two of which involved accusations that Dr. Piazza is a Scientologist. More here.

I haven’t been to Front Sight, so I can’t pass judgment on their training. (Nor do I want to go: if i was going to travel for training, I’d be going to Gunsite.) I don’t have a problem with Dr. Piazza being a Scientologist (if indeed he is one) as long as he doesn’t try to convert me. I do have a problem, though, with trying to get taxpayers to pay for the expansion of his facility, especially when he’s involved with Don Holbrook.

I’m promoting this from a comment left on my “Contact the proprietor” page. The original can be found here.

Awesome blog about Earthquest. Here is an update:
The Earthquest Institute is now defunct and its CEO (as Don Allen Holbrook LLC) is suing John and Jane Does who have dared to comment about this project and his involvement in it. He is also suing the Tribune, Cynthia Calvert, The Houston Press, Craig Malisow, The Pahrump Valley Times and me (Soapboxmom).
Earthquest Adventures will be remembered for this frivolous, harassment suit filed by Holbrook in an effort to stifle public debate about this matter of public concern. Holbrook apparently thinks the taxpayers should have no say in how their tax dollars are spent.
Please also watch for updates on the Earthquest Facebook page.

I was not aware that Holbrook was suing folks. If so, this is a revolting development. Since I’ve been on vacation the past couple of days, I haven’t had a chance to follow-up with soapboxmom on this, so I don’t know if she and other folks involved have legal representation yet. I assume the Houston Press has lawyers on retainer, but I’m not sure about the other folks named.

(soapboxmom, I would like to follow up with you on that. Please feel free to email me at one of the addresses on the contact page.)

Back in 2006, a guy named Don Lessem, who claimed to be both an entrepreneur and a “nationally recognized dinosaur expert” announced plans to build a huge theme park in the southeastern part of Montgomery County. Originally, this started out as Project Rex/Dinosaur City, which was supposed to take up 50 acres and cost $50 million. The project eventually evolved into EarthQuest, expanded to 1,600 acres, and hit a $1 billion cost projection.

It looks like the whole “Project Rex” plan was really a way to get municipalities to pony up land and money for a proposed theme park; the developers would pick up consulting fees, while the locals would take all the risks and front all the expenses:

The hattip on this goes to BlogHouston (good to see those guys active again) which offers an excellent roundup of The Tribune‘s coverage. In another story, Cynthia Calvert discusses the economics of the EMCID’s EarthQuest bonds:

This appears to be Don Lessem’s personal web site. I debated about including this, since reports indicate that he’s left the project, and there’s nothing about EarthQuest that I can find on his site. But I decided to err on the side of inclusion, especially since Lessem still shows up on the EarthQuest site.

Edited to add 2: Lawrence reminded me that he’d also done a post on EarthQuest. I’ve also been doing some thinking about the $1 billion estimated cost for EarthQuest, and how that compares to Disney World, but I’m not sure I want to post those thoughts yet.

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